The UOJ Stormtroopers keep proving that they are sectarians who specialize in one error and only think in terms of that falsehood.
The modern term is pixelation, soon to be added to the Icha-slang Lexicon. The Stormtroopers magnify one phrase from one verse and make their false view the epicenter of the Biblical witness. Nothing can dislodge them.
In this case, the issue is universal absolution--without faith--and calling that The Gospel.
They hate admitting their common origin with ELCA.
Although not everyone from the Big Four graduated from Halle University, many Lutheran founders are directly connected with Halle, the center of Pietism, established to promote Pietism.
Muhlenberg, the founder of ELCA (on the ULCA-General Synod side) was a Halle graduate. The Scandihoovians were Pietists. Walther took over the Pietistic sect of Bishop Stephan and kept cell groups going for a period of time. Stephan attended Halle.
Adolph Hoenecke, the WELS theologian, graduated from Halle.
Apparently, the arrivals known in America as Old Lutherans were really just the latest Pietists from Halle (Europe's Fuller Seminary). The New Lutherans of the General Synod were simply following the natural progression of Pietism and got themselves involved in sweating, dancing, fainting revivals, where more souls were conceived than saved, as my church history professor once observed.
The separatism of the various Lutheran sects had a lot more to do with culture and language than with doctrinal differences. The groups were fairly similar, except the revivalists were more honest about their longing to return to the Rome of Pietism - Evangelicalism.
WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect on the Prairie have proven their affinity with ELCA by working with the apostates in every possible area of ministry, including worship, while pretending like true Pietists that they loathe the doctrine and practice of ELCA. Pietism breeds hypocrisy, which is why a Pietistic country has the worst abortion-on-demand laws in the world.
Richard Jungkuntz easily moved from a tiny college in Watertown to leadership of Seminex, because Northwestern College was the fertile womb of Seminex and the AELC. That radical element took over the Chicago seminary and controlled the merger documents that produce the ELCA. The common doctrinal element was UOJ.
My quick read of American Lutheran history is this - Each group came from Pietism and engaged in a struggle between genuine orthodoxy and Pietistic unionism. In every case, Pietism won and expelled partisans of Luther and the Book of Concord.
Each group has a set of legalistic rules designed to hide the fact that they are all working together. Thus SP Schroeder condemns ELCA while working with ELCA through Thrivent programs. Schroeder's lucrative job is not to promote or maintain sound doctrine, but to keep people from finding out the truth about WELS.
Ditto, Pope John the Malefactor in the ELS.
Ditto, Matt Harrison in the LCMS.
A fraction of the pastors want the false image kept up, because they get to skim the loot for their fancy trips, luxury conference stays, and sinecures. The rest keep silent because they want those perks for themselves.
